


Til Death Do Us Part (but I'll bring you back every time)

by SalamanderInk



Series: The Crow and the Phoenix [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Aulrune Tony Stark, BAMF Loki (Marvel), Bakery, Falling In Love, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gallows Humor, Graphic Description of Corpses, Gunshot Wounds, Happy Ending, Idiots in Love, M/M, Necromancer Loki, Necromancer Tony Stark, Protective Jarvis (Iron Man movies), Temporary Character Death, ghost Jarvis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:06:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24304138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SalamanderInk/pseuds/SalamanderInk
Summary: Anthony was born from Death and for Death. He thought that would be all that his life was going to offer him.Loki always liked to defy expectations.
Relationships: Loki/Tony Stark
Series: The Crow and the Phoenix [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1754578
Comments: 32
Kudos: 147





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rabentochter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rabentochter/gifts), [NamelesslyNightlock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NamelesslyNightlock/gifts), [Of_Lights_and_Shadows](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Of_Lights_and_Shadows/gifts).



> Let's blame Nico for that one, since she's the one who spoke about aulrunes in the first place. Though I miiiight have been the one to decide to write this thing.  
> I needed a break from longfics after having finished wolf and blackout in a couple months, and still needed to churn words for camp nano, so there is the result of that!  
> Many thanks to Sesil for having cheer-read for me and helped with titles and summaries, and having conned me into writing a smutty sequel, Lou for having encouraged me to write this from the begining and Tay who keeps cheering me on.  
> As always, fic is already complete, as is the (currenlty sole) sequel.  
> This is wayyyy too sweet and adorable.

The Stark family had many secrets. Some of them were quite common, rather bland in fact. Others were more objectionable, but still, quite within the realm of normalcy. Quite understandable, _believable._

Anthony was not one of those. 

Deep within the heart of a Stark property, amongst acres of privately owned land, in the depths of a camouflaged lab, one not shown on any blueprints, spoken of on any register, kept entirely off the record and hidden from satellite imagery, was a garden. 

And amongst that garden, hidden just as closely, and guarded even more jealously, even more shrewdly than any treasure the Starks could ever possibly own, was Anthony. 

Because, as much as Stark senior, the scientist, called Anthony his greatest creation, as much as he sometimes, in jest, called him a ‘son’, the truth remained, _Anthony was not human._

He was a science project, a _thing,_ one that was not supposed to feel or think, and certainly not in the manner that he did. 

Certainly not enough to outsmart his genius creator, to hack within the mainframe of the labs and reach the internet, not enough to become self aware and self serving, to learn, to _grow_ in a way that was beyond Stark’s expectations and parameters. 

And yet. And yet Anthony did all of that. 

He named himself, choosing a human name even though he was not human, even though he should by all means _despise_ them. 

He named himself _Stark,_ for his creator, though the man had never truly been nurturing, nor even very much of an inspiration. And yet, even if Anthony could never name the man ‘father’, he could still recognize his involvement in his creation, his dedication, his drive. His genius. 

He named himself Anthony, after the descendants of a hero, one who was told to have walked the line between life and death, between being extraordinary and being _immortal._ One who used both cleverness and strength to succeed in his endeavors. 

Of course, these days, Greek names rather stood out. Anthony could hardly call himself Ulysses without raising a few eyebrows, and standing out was the last thing he wanted to do. 

Perhaps it really wasn’t really the most appropriate. Howard was nothing like Heracles, and while Anthony was a common enough name, from what he’d found, not many knew of the connection to the Greek hero. Neither would he, really, had he not seen that line from the Odyssey, Hercules being found in the Hades, both living and not. 

He liked the Odyssey, the tale of a man doing all he could to find his home again, to get back to his lost family. But Anthony could never be Ulysses. He had no one to come back to. 

He was still not sure he was a living being himself. 

But he had a name now, one he’d chosen for himself, once that he made sense to him, however convoluted. He was able to think, knew his own self as different from the world around, and was that not a proof of sentience? 

But was it proof of _life_ was the question. 

Walking through the deserted facility, fingers trailing over the walls and leaving behind rotting stains and decay, Anthony arrived at the greenhouse, its enclosure hermetically sealed from the rest of the labs. 

The commands opened under his touch, much more cooperative now that Anthony has taken over. 

The smell assaulted his nose, rancid air wafting out as soon as the door started to open. 

Tony understood now, why the scientists hated this place so much, why they spoke of the smell as horrid, as entirely offensive, why they kept it isolated in that small enclosure, why they only came in wearing masks, even though the air was perfectly breathable for humans. All of them, but Howard. 

He could recognize it now, how similar it was from the stench that permeated the main labs, from the stinking breeze that coursed through the rest of the compound. 

Flowers grew in patches, their petals large and soft, color a ruddy orange with red spots that nonetheless managed to seem dim and bland, even in the low evening light. 

The smell was anything but bland. 

Decay and death, the pungent stench of rotting corpses, of dried blood and wastes. 

Just like the decomposing bodies of the scientists that had helped with his creation. 

*

Was Anthony an orphan? 

There were many questions he asked himself, some of them made more sense than others. He had been created by humans, possessed the shape of one, but no one had truly taught him what it meant to _be_ one. 

What _should_ he be thinking? What would a human do? 

The Internet was currently his only means of knowing such, but then, it was incredibly dense and hard to navigate. What should he look for first? 

It was that weird stumbling search that made him come across the Odyssey, but it was far from enough a reference for him to truly come across as human. 

Movies were a great help somehow, and yet, Tony was left confused and uncomprehending by most of the actions thusly depicted. Anthony wanted to make his own way, to step into the human world and find his freedom. But. 

The tasks before him seemed much more unbeatable than killing monsters and cleaning stables. Not that Tony really understood what stables _were_ beyond the concept of it, or that he was unaware that, for most people _he_ would be the one considered the monster. 

Even though the bodies slowly moldering in the other room were not actually of his doing, even as he’d been a helpless bystander to his creator’s murders, his body conscious yet unresponsive as the machines around him screamed and pulsed with lights and warnings, not yet awake, nor even actually _born_ before the ...crime. 

He had awoken to a massacre. 

And he’d been unfazed. 

Anthony was self aware enough to know that, for most people, most _humans,_ being unaffected by death was a sign of mental illness, of a person of inhuman coldness and a lack of empathy that made them dangerous to society as a whole. 

He understood, of course. 

As a social species, their survival mostly hinged upon their ability to rely on each other, to help each other. And for that to happen, they needed trust, they needed a connection, at that usually implied empathy to some extent. Or compassion. The desire to protect one’s kin. 

Anthony had none of that, but then, he was not human. 

And of those bodies laying in broken heaps around the lab, there were very few that he would have considered _kin_ when they were still _people,_ still alive. 

Howard, perhaps, for his sheer brilliance and drive, though that did not make him someone Anthony liked overmuch. 

A string of data from the main computers reminded him that part of his creation had used said scientist’s DNA as the frame for building his current body. 

It did not change much, though he supposed that it would explain the physical resemblance between them both. 

But Anthony was smaller. His hands tiny, still a bit clumsy, the control panels uncomfortably high for him. His face was rounder, his eyes _yellower._

He supposed if he extrapolated the parameters from what he’d seen previously of the reams of data outsourced from the internet, it seemed that he was _a child._ Or at least, that _his current body_ externally expressed the physical characteristics of one. 

But, at his heart, Anthony felt more in tune with the gentle hush of the flowers than he did with the troves of humans he’d witnessed in the videos, the crush of crowds and the noise and… 

No, Anthony decidedly had no wish to visit the human world so soon. 

But he was half human. And he wanted to learn how to reconcile that part of him, how to understand himself better. He knew he was not a flower, he could not subsist like his lily-sisters did, taking subsistence from the vines’ life-force, spending their days unmoving, thoughts a gentle buzz that did not much deviate from their daily life, their needs and state. 

Already, Anthony knew himself to be much different from them, just as different as he was from the humans who had toiled on making his flesh grow, their strange ways of thinking, of prioritizing, of loving and hating and doing things they loved or hated and, no. They were much too complex for him to understand on his own. 

He needed a teacher, one who would understand his specific plight, one who would be kind and patient, who would explain to him all that he needed to know. 

He needed an ally. 

Child eyes looked back at him from the mirror window of the greenhouse, wild curls matted with dried blood and the flaking crusts etching strange symbols onto his torso.

Or perhaps, a ‘parent’. 

*

The process came naturally to him, even more so than walking. 

The knowledge seemed innate, as deep seated as the fact that he was a Being, that his coming into existence was as much the work of scientific feats—of either dubious or straight up unethical morality—as it was that of the blood sacrifices the murderer had carried out, and the ritual words spoken to his yet unliving receptacle, the blood-soaked runes drawn on his flesh. 

As ingrained as the way he was kin to the corpse-smelling lilies, and the way he was so close to being a human as well, close but not quite. 

He had all the memories of the body he’d been born to, the name of each researcher, their way of speaking, of thinking, their motivations, the small secrets that they spoke of when they thought they were alone, but for the unmoving, unthinking flesh that they had grown from tubes and petri dishes. 

Anthony had not always been aware. The body’s memory did not truly go back overly far in time, but it did _enough._

Enough for him to know that, of them all, Maya and Aldrich and Obahdi-ah, of course Howard and Maria, Anton and Raza, and so many others, there was only one that seemed ever patient and truly gentle, only one who was always poised and unflappable, dedicated and yet still somehow _compassionate._

He had spoken to him, even from before he lived, kind words, soft and reassuring when he handled him. 

He had treated him like a future being instead of simply a test subject, and somehow, it was that that made the difference. 

It was what made Anthony pick out his corpse amongst the many, laying it out straight and as clean as he could. It was what made him close his eyes with what he’d read was respect and draw the circle around him with his own blood. 

Words came from his lips, the first sounds he’d uttered a sacrifice to power that first work of magic, the first notes from his voice, song light and airy, high notes of a soprano so pure and crystalline he made himself weep. 

The memory of that voice, of that gentleness, that patience. 

It stayed with him as he moved through the ritual, hands tracing arcane symbols that crackled through the air, sizzling with power as they slithered through the veil, reaching out and _pulling._

The manes screamed at the intrusion, howling winds rising around him, impossibly brutal within that environmentally-controlled enclosed pace, but Anthony understood. 

This was the veil of Death. This was the place between life and the resting souls of the departed, the sacred path, one that should by all means be forbidden. And yet Anthony was threading it, clumsily still, because for all his knowledge he was still inexperienced, but doggedly, and the fabric of the Universe protested the breach. 

It would smooth over with time, he knew. The veil would get to know him, would come to see him with all the affection one could have for a fostered child, but that would not come just yet, not until they got to know each other. 

It was not Anthony’s current purpose. 

Static sparked around them as the world _groaned,_ one last token protest before the Soul was pulled in, irreversibly trapped to the world of the living, bound to Anthony’s own soul. 

It breathed, though it did not have lungs, discorporate eyes looking over the gruesome mess of scattered bodies and the small child standing over what had once been his flesh, sticky with blood and grime, the one who would be its master. 

Anthony looked back, fascinated and not a little exhausted. He felt the soul reach out to him, questioning, hesitant. Wary. 

Of course it would be. 

Not every Death-Raiser was good to the souls in their service. Anthony didn’t know _how_ he knew, but he was very aware that the soul’s worry was quite founded. 

But there was intent to their bond, Anthony’s need for instruction and guidance clearly stated and only loosely enforced, no demand on the soul, no actual force being used. Just a tenuous link and a question, an offer, almost. 

The soul moved, gently coming closer, lowering until it was level with him. Incorporeal fingers reached out, gently caressing his cheek. 

Anthony looked back up at the ghost, curious and unafraid, though he felt a vulnerable part of his heart wrench at the sheer tenderness of the gesture. 

‘Come, Young Sir. Let’s get you away from this slaughterhouse. You need a wash and some rest.’

Bemused, Anthony followed along the soft touch, unresisting even as it guided him to the personnel’s quarters and into a sterile bathroom, almost meek as he let himself be guided inside the small shower stall, watched the ghost take a tiny chunk of his energy in order to handle the showerhead and washcloth. 

The water felt warm on his skin, strangely smooth and yet powerful. The soap bubbled strangely, in a way that reminded him of plant foam, and the sight comforted him immensely. The smell was chemical, but still much less harsh than the antiseptics and other acids he was used to. Science trying to make itself seem floral. The irony would make him smile, if not for the strange blend of feeling swirling through him. 

Feeling the tender care of the ghost slowly washing him, it’s soft commentary about personal hygiene and self-care, it’s gentle affection and the carefulness of his touch…

It felt warm, somehow, like a hot air balloon lifting him up from the inside. 

His eyes welled up, though he did not know why or how, and a sob escaped him when what almost felt like a hand wiped it off, kindly, reassuringly. 

An unnamed yearning opened inside him, a yawning chasm that clawed up his throat. The unnamed feeling was too distressing to understand, just a jumbled need for something he could not fathom, a desperate ache that would not abate even as sobs tore through him. 

Th specter hushed him, holding him close inside his phantom arms, the embrace more grounding than he’d ever expected. 

He just felt so lost, strangely disconnected from reality and from his own body. 

He watched on almost in a dream as the soul dried him gently, distantly relishing the softness of the towel and the warmth of being dry and clean. He was unresisting as it helped him put on an oversized shirt and too long soft pants, as the specter gently guided him back to the greenhouse and helped him climb into the biggest of the corpse-lilies, until he was settled around it’s pistil, the soft petals gently caressing his back, the sweet fragrance of death lulling him into a light doze. 

He sensed the ghost gently lay a blanket over him as his eyes started to close on their own. He felt drained and completely overwhelmed, even though he did not quite know how. 

But there was still one last thing he needed to do before he could sleep, one last step to that ritual. 

“Do you want to stay with me?”

The specter looked back at him, its empty eyes somehow full of affection. 

Anthony did not understand why. He didn’t understand his carefulness, his patience. Didn’t understand all these unnecessary gestures, the careful pat on his head, the brush of ghostly fingers through his hair, the steadiness in his gaze. 

He didn’t understand what this too warm, choking feeling in his chest _was._

But he knew he never wanted it to stop. 

The ghost seemed to smile at him, and nod. 

“I will be by your side for as long as you need me, Young Sir.” 

Anthony’s eyes welled up, that warm glowing sensation, _emotion,_ blurring his words through the last vow of the ritual, not enough to make it unintelligible, but enough to infuse it with that golden warmth, that seed of mutual affection. 

“Your name… was Edwin Jarvis. Now… now, you’re _my_ Jarvis.”

The specter only smiled, strangely unconcerned by its master solidifying their bond into permanence. 

“Just sleep, Young Sir. I will be there when you wake.”

*

Jarvis was wonderful. 

With him by his side, the days no longer felt so bleak, the world full of possibilities, of opportunities that made him _excited_ instead of trapped. 

Emotions were still tricky to navigate, to understand, but Jarvis was ever patient, and his questions gently steered him to make sense of his own complexity, of the nuances of each feeling. Little by little, he started to trust himself and to make sense of his feelings. Emotional outbursts still happened, but Jarvis never seemed to think there was an issue with being so easily overwhelmed with such simple things as a scrape or getting lost, so he did his best not to worry himself about it. 

Emotions had their uses and their nuances, and Anthony was slowly learning them, along with the most basics of etiquettes and courtesy rituals that were in use around the world.

He had easily understood that his mind was far from normal, which was rather obvious due to his very nature, but he had not anticipated that his skill at deciphering computer codes and understanding technology and machinery would be so rare and acute, even amongst the rest of humanity. He was half vegetal, after all, something Jarvis called Alraune with a hint of reverence in his voice, something that was unheard of, impossible. 

And yet. 

Jarvis never explained why he had chosen to stay with Anthony, never told him what had made him treat him with such care, such gentleness even before their contract had been defined. He would only smile his ghostly smile and instruct Anthony on another subject, fanning his curiosity on everything that could be studied on this Earth, encouraging him to play even when he felt mulishly attached to his screens, and took care of him like a true parent would. 

It felt strangely dissonant to Anthony. He had never asked Jarvis to _care_ for him. So why did he? 

But then, perhaps there did not need to be a reason. Not to care, not to love, not even to hate. That was something that Jarvis had tried to teach him, though Anthony did not quite understand what he meant. If some loves had a reason and others did not, did they all have the same worth? 

Jarvis had said, the worth of love is not in how it had started, but in how it was cultivated, how it _grew._

Anthony had not understood at first, but he did now. 

Jarvis had been with him every single day since he’d summoned him, been a constant, reassuring presence and a gentle comfort. He’d been a mentor and a friend, a parent and a playmate. He’d made Anthony’s life so much brighter, so much easier. Less scary, less insurmountable. 

And now, he could no longer think of a life without that ghostly caress, that gentle pride, that quiet guidance. He would never let himself lose the warm feeling that came over him whenever he heard his praises. 

And indeed, the longer they were together, the more they just knew each other, knew which words to say, knew what would bring happiness to the other, what would be best to show their appreciation. 

He understood now, what Jarvis meant. Because, as much as Anthony had appreciated Jarvis’ patience and aplomb in life, as much as it felt like his soul was the one that resonated with him most, it had nothing on the care it had grown into. The love. 

And so Anthony basked in that almost childhood, because he was a child without being one, he enjoyed, he learned, practiced. The bodies in the lab had long turned to bone, stench gone, as were the maggots and the flies. Though, the desiccated remains had never truly bothered him. 

He figured it was due to his Alraune side. The corpse lilies certainly had an affinity for death, after all, and the smell of rotting flesh was only natural. The most natural thing in the world. It smelled of home, though Jarvis kept insisting on proper hygiene and sanitation. 

He supposed he should keep his fascination with death hidden when he finally went into the human world. Humans, _mortals,_ were supposedly rather wary about dying, and since Anthony was literally a Death Omen, it would only be logical for them to shun, avoid or even harm him should they find out. 

Anyway, Jarvis had insisted that he not wander into any human-populated place until he was older. Something about children wandering off alone and safety. He still wasn’t sure if he was speaking of the human being wary about that or if Anthony would truly be under threat. Perhaps both. Jarvis was a worrywart. 

But then, that was also part of the reason Anthony loved him so much. 

*

The human world was _loud._

And dirty. 

And full of humans. 

Why the latest came as a surprise, Anthony couldn’t guess. 

Well. 

He could guess, of course. But that did not make it any less irritating. 

He hated feeling so overwhelmed, throngs of people bustling around him, bumping into him, jostling him around without a care. 

Perhaps he should have followed Jarvis’ advice and started off posing as a traveler in a remote town, just to get used to the feel of a city. 

But then, a teenager traveling alone was both suspicious and dangerous. There was an anonymity to the big cities. People did not care, did not _watch._

And Anthony did not feel secure enough in his guise and acting to stand up to people’s scrutiny. 

Jarvis had eventually bowed to that logic… provided that Anthony got himself the means for a quick getaway. And _he had!_

Though, admittedly, he was feeling much too confused and shocked to use it, his senses feeling more than a bit overwhelmed. 

He was reacting as though each touch was an assault, and yet he was unable to defend himself. They kept coming, from all sides, and he did not have the time to think, or the room to move, _to breathe._

_He could not breathe._

A hand caught his hood, bodily dragging him to the side, the crush of people even more suffocating for a moment before… 

Air. 

He was away from the crowd, just to the side in a small alley. He could see the flow of people passing by uninterrupted, overwhelming, and just the thought of going back into _that_ gave him chills. 

Movies _had not_ been sufficient preparation. 

He looked back to his savior. _Hopefully_ a savior, and not someone who decided he was an easy target to mob. 

He had yet to learn any inconspicuous spells, and _‘decay’_ would definitely stand out to the human law enforcement. He’d rather not have the magic division on his back. 

It was a boy. One who didn’t look much older than Anthony was, though of course Anthony’s true age was a bit _off,_ compared to his physical body’s development, so, technically, the boy should be older than him by a few years. 

He had black hair and the greenest eyes and Anthony could feel the magic potential wafting from him like a trove of fireflies trying to escape a closed jar. Untapped. Raw. _Powerful._

And his eyes were filled with concern and compassion, though Anthony could feel the keen curiosity buried under a thin veil of courtesy. 

“Are you alright?”

Was he? Anthony took stock of himself, his possession, his current emotional and physical status. Everything seemed to have returned within normal parameters, but he still felt strangely shaken, and the idea of returning into the crowd _terrified_ him. 

“Mostly.” 

The boy smirked knowingly. 

“Not eager to get back into the rush, are you?”

Anthony nodded hesitantly. It was true enough. 

No need to explain to a stranger that he’d barely been around any living humans at all before the past week. 

Not that he’d been entirely isolated. The forest adjoining the facility was rife with life, magical and mundane both, and he’d made great friends there. 

And, from the other side of the veil…

“Don’t worry too much about it. It’s sometimes overwhelming even for the locals, and you’re not from around here, are you?”

Anthony blinked. He didn’t think he’d have been caught so easily. But then, he supposed it would be rather obvious to anyone who knew what to look for. 

He smiled sheepishly at his benefactor, before chancing a wary glance back to the busy street. 

It was still just as packed with humans as before. 

The boy snorted. 

“You’d best not go back that way. The crowds aren’t going to thin out for a good couple hours yet.”

Anthony stared at him, letting his eyes show the tiniest hint of his power. 

It made humans uncomfortable, he knew. It made them have to face the reality of life and death in a way most people would much rather avoid. 

Denial made people violent, revealed their cores. 

Sometimes. 

Still, Anthony was a terrible judge of character, especially since he had so little experience in reading people. 

But now, with this stranger offering to guide him away through the dark alleys? 

Not even he was naive enough to take him blindly at his word. 

Except that he _did_ have a good feeling about that boy, and with Jarvis so reassuringly silent at his side, he wondered if this was not the beginnings of a human friendship. Jarvis always told him when he thought the people he was meeting were untrustworthy. 

The Dead _knew._

But then, Anthony could always get some insurance, just in case. 

“What’s your name?”

The boy blinked, either at the abrupt change of subject or at the way they’d spoken for so long without even knowing what to call each other. 

And then he smiled, the expression charmingly guileless as he offered his hand. 

“My name’s Loki, nice to meet you! I’ve moved here with my family a couple years ago so I’m used to the crowds now, but I know how it feels when you come from smaller towns.”

Anthony smiled back, shaking his hand the way he’d seen in movies. 

This definitely qualified as the beginnings of a friendship.

“I’m Anthony. I come from somewhere fairly isolated so this is quite the shock.” 

Personal information, offered and shared, the ritual of shaking hands, smiles that felt like sunshine. 

There was no need to inform Loki of what power he’d given Anthony over him simply by sharing his true name. 

After all, names had power, even moreso when your magic dealt in death and spirits. 

Loki was a good name. It suited the lanky boy, especially when mischievous spark entered his green eyes, alighting them with banked power and glee. 

Anthony _liked_ it. The feel of Loki’s hand around his felt _right,_ reassuring, warm. 

When Loki pulled him further into the dank alleyways, he followed him, walking then running through the darkness and then out in the light through another, smaller avenue, a few corners and then swiftly into a small coffee shop. 

They collapsed together, breathless, exhilarated from the ridiculous chase, a new camaraderie having been forged between the two, a closeness that could only be born from children’s games. 

They had passed through crowds. And busy roads, and dark streets, and honking cars and corded out construction sites. 

And Anthony had never felt scared. Not for one second, with Loki’s warm hand enfolding his, his clear laughter ringing around them and his intoxicating enthusiasm. 

He shared a glance with his new friend, gold meeting green amidst streams of giggles, and he felt a certainty down to his bones that this boy, _Loki,_ would be a source of joy and happiness for him, that he would stay by his side for eons to come. 

It was a good feeling. 

*

He did not know how it had happened. It hadn’t been _supposed_ to happen. 

The street was still damp from the previous downpour, water dripping everywhere and squelching under Anthony’s shoes as he held onto Loki’s crumpled body. 

There had been no sign, no forewarning, nothing at all to let Anthony _plan,_ or prepare for this. 

Nothing he could do.

Police lights glowed over him, blue then red, then blue again, the noise pounding through his ears as he clung to the only brightness he knew. 

Nothingnothingnothing _nothing!_

Everything was grey. 

The only sound he wanted to hear was Loki’s breaths, but it was faint and labored. Too wet. 

_It was ridiculous!_

There was blood on his lips. 

_Redredredredred._

Loki could not _die_ like that, he had only just found him!

Everything was grey. 

They had been friends for a few years by now, meeting in various places around the city while Anthony finally learned how to be human, playing and learning, and growing together, but they were supposed to have their whole lives, and Loki was supposed to be _his!_

There was too much blood on the ground. Too much from the medics to do anything, by now, even if they cared enough to look for the ‘collateral’, for the poor sod that had gotten hit by a stray shot, someone not even involved in the crime happening on the street over. 

It was not _fair!_

It made no sense. Anthony could not, _would not_ make sense of it. 

His hands were trembling. 

His eyes were leaking. 

More wetness to mingle with the blood and the rain, to make the grip he held onto his friend more slippery, as though anything could ever make him _let go._

_He refused._

Nothing could ever make him. 

Nothing. 

Not even death. 

Because Anthony was an Omen of Death himself. Because he held dominion over the Veil, because he could decide who passed and who _came back._

He was no longer the tiny child who could only call ghosts over and tie them to his own soul. 

Blood kept pouring, slipping through Anthony’s useless fingers, spilling Loki’s life-force over the dirty alley-ground, dripping through the cracks of asphalt.

Slowly, he mouthed over the words, the ancient chant, words of power, incantations that could and _would_ bend reality to his will. 

The blood shivered under his call, shifting into the patterns of power, ignoring the call of gravity and the still pouring rain, remaining untouched by the dirty water running to the sewers and flooding the streets. 

They glowed, power rising from life’s last beats, from Anthony’s howling grief, from the dogged determination of the one chosen to be Death’s own omen on this Earth. 

Because Anthony would not give in, he would sink his claws deep into Loki’s soul and _get him back,_ no matter how or what price he would have to pay. 

He remembered his warm and innocent laughter, the mischief brimming in those clear green eyes, the sleeping magic resting in his steady heart. 

He could still feel that warmth struggling in his friend’s body, the fluttering of a heart beating his last, a heart-wrenching song that Anthony refused to hear to its end. 

He’d never understood before, how death could be the end of someone’s world, how one could _hate it,_ to the bottom of their heart. 

And yet, now, Anthony could think of nothing else. 

Of walking through those streets without seeing Loki trying to scale every fire hydrant on the way, just to jump back down each time, of not crossing the roads while only stepping on the white bands, of going to _their_ booth, in _their_ coffeeshop, and being _alone._

Of not going to high school anymore, because what would be the point if not to see Loki? Of no longer trying to find a way to make life more difficult for the football team, no more itching powder or jelly showers, of paintball in the locker-rooms. 

No more mischief and laughter, no more _life._

Loki’s breaths slowed even more, but the magic was sparking with life, with death, with the maelstrom of Anthony’s fluctuating moods, rage and grief and remembered joy and despair. 

The air was thick with it, static sparking against their skins, zapping and pulling at their clothes, a yawning chasm opening between them both, the gateways between life and death. 

Because Anthony would only have the power to act at the very second where Loki would walk that edge. 

He held no power over life, no hint of healing magic, nothing, _nothing that could help,_ not to stop the bullet, to turn back time or heal the wounds. 

But on that moment, that instant of crossing, he _could_ act. 

His magic clawed at Loki’s body, burrowing into him and _pulling,_ hooking over the dormant magic and _wrenching._

Loki _would not die._

His heart stopped. 

Anthony _screamed,_ power exploding over him like a firestorm, rage and desperation crashing against the rules of reality, against the very Laws of the Universe, begging and howling, clawing for a loophole, _the_ loophole, because Loki was _not dead yet,_ and yet _no longer of the living,_ and that meant he was _his,_ his to save and to bring back amongst the living. Safe and in one piece. 

_“Please!”_

Time stopped. 

Loki’s magic shivered, writhing under his skin and uncoiling from its lifelong sleep, before breaking loose, glowing strings fluttering gently over his skin like ripples over the clear, unbroken surface of still waters. 

And deep under, the growing chasm and deep currents awaking, the slow awakening of a giant. 

Still waters ran deep.

Anthony’s own golden ropes of magic sank through the deep, crossing over the Veil and finding the young soul that felt like _Loki._

The soul was slippery, like those silverskinned fishes that swirled through the stream next to the research facility. Anthony remembered having tried to catch one before, when he’d first come out of the great white building. His small clumsy hands had waded through the chilly water, feeling it press against his flesh, the resistance of the current, the wriggling flesh of those small scaly bodies slipping through his fingers.

Loki would not do the same. 

His magic hooked over him, weaving an impenetrable net, sinking under those thin silver scales until they glowed just as gold as Anthony did. 

Loki was _his!_

His grasp tightened over Loki’s soul, before forcefully dragging it back through to the land of the living. 

_Time started again._

It was hard to breathe. His heart was beating too hard against his ears, too slow. 

_There was nothing more he could do._

Loki’s magic would do the rest, Anthony knew. _Hoped._

Black spots grew in his vision, the sirens distorting into a strange gargled wail.

Loki would be fine, he would be there when he woke up. Alive. Breathing. 

_Loki was alive._

That was the only reason Anthony let himself slip back into the darkness of oblivion.


	2. Chapter 2

There had always been many strange things about Loki’s best friend. Some inconsistencies, oddnesses that could not just be explained away by him being a foreigner. Not when Loki was one himself. 

Of course, he’d never really asked, never pried, and done his best to cover for them and teach Anthony the correct mannerisms instead. 

And in return, Anthony had offered his unconditional friendship, companionship,  affection. 

He’d joined Loki’s school, even when it was more than obvious that there was actually no outside obligation forcing him to do so, not when he’d shown him his perfect SAT scores. 

He’d participated in his pranks, came to his home, heard his woes, helped him get back at his bullies. He’d done all that and more, and become Loki’s most important anchor in his life. 

His own very best friend. 

Thor hated him, of course he did. Because Anthony did not care on whit what the oaf wanted. Because Loki was the only one allowed to call Anthony by his true name and not the moniker he donned at school. Because Anthony was always there to follow Loki’s plots and schemes, and bring about even more chaos about. 

And, Loki admitted begrudgingly, because Anthony himself was strangely  _ intimidating. _

Not for Loki, of course, he’d never felt the slightest bit unsettled by the steady gold gaze, never disturbed by the way he always seemed to gaze a bit too deep into people’s souls or to know a bit too much about  _ everything.  _

No, Loki had always found those quirks of Anthony’s personality somehow  _ charming,  _ incredibly natural. As though they were as certain as gravity, as reliable as the way the sun rose and set in the sky. 

And Loki had started orbiting around that tiny slip of a boy with an outrageous and odd personality, with his jarring naivety and kindness, with his sometimes startling morbidity, and the way it contrasted with his otherwise sunny disposition, with his unearthly innocence. 

Loki loved that boy with everything that he was, loved every quirk, every smile, every word from his lips. 

There had been nothing that Anthony could do that ever made him uncomfortable. Not even that really curious conversation on Loki’s previous birthday where Anthony had asked him the permission to mess with his soul. 

Loki had thought that Anthony was joking at the time, and even if he had not, he hadn’t quite understood what Anthony had meant. 

After all, that was the first time anyone had asked him for the permission to ‘hold his soul’. If something were to ‘happen to him’. 

Nothing had come from it besides a sunny and relieved smile, nothing beyond them going back to Loki’s room to read some more. 

It had never happened. 

Feeling his spirit phase through his body and take ahold of his flesh before it slipped from his discorporate grasp once more, Loki understood that. It was his mind’s way to make sense of what had just happened, the way Anthony had used to contact him once he’d already been too far gone to give consent. 

Reaching through his mind directly, hooking onto a memory in order to mutate it for his own purpose, for one last desperate communication. 

Ghostly fingers glowed green with newly awakened magic before phasing through his flesh had once more, and Loki  _ willed  _ the meld. 

His hand tingled, the unpleasant crawling of blood flowing back to a numb limb. 

He grit phantom teeth and bore through the feeling. 

Anthony made no sense at all, except that he  _ did.  _

Loki never expected that he would have to die in order to solve the mystery. 

Die, and be brought back from the dead. 

Anthony had just… 

His fingers could curl, now, moving almost naturally. He could raise his arm, his  _ flesh _ arm, and the move would be almost seamless. 

He supposed that he would be able to behave naturally enough to be able to go back home. As though nothing happened. His family would be none the wiser. 

They would never know that he had  _ died.  _

That Tony had saved him. 

The only traces were the pints of blood that had been washed off by the rain already and the strange pattern burnt into the asphalt. 

His magic recognized it already, curling lovingly against the dark esoteric letters. 

He could taste the desperation and horror in the air, those last hints of grief that lingered over the slumped form of his friend. 

Loki wanted to soothe the furrow that laid between his brows, to protect him from the nightmares already plaguing him. 

Somehow he knew that he would be the one starring into those nightmares, or rather his broken and bloody form would. 

But he could not wake him yet. He was trembling with exhaustion, even through sleep, and his magic was barely a spark left from the golden sun it used to be. 

That was a strange thing he would have to get used to, those snippets of knowledge that came to him at seemingly random. He somehow knew that it was his magic’s input, that they came from all that it had experienced of the world before awakening, that it had held those experiences for him overtime in order to eventually help him. He was … grateful, somehow, but mostly very confused. 

It was too much, too fast, too shocking, and he knew if he took any time at all to consider what was happening around him, he would feel his mind slowly slip into hysteria. 

He could not afford to do so. He was still healing, his heart beating much too slowly to appear normal, his soul phasing in and out of his flesh in an uncoordinated mess, Anthony unconscious by his side and covered in blood, it looked  _ bad.  _

Necromancy was very much frowned upon, even more for unlicensed practitioners. 

They needed to get away from there, away from prying eyes and the open, somewhere safe and secluded. Somewhere where no one would be able to gawk at the blood or the green glow of his eyes or the shallow breaths of his comatose friend. 

Or the ghost silently looking at him from the side. 

Jarvis, probably. 

He could not get home like that. 

He stood on shaky legs, hefting Anthony up, more through the force of his magic than any physical strength he could possibly hold in this state, and turned to the ghost. 

“Where does Anthony usually stay?”

And Jarvis slowly showed him the way. 

*

Ghost powers were widely overrated. 

Loki had, at long last, managed to completely fuse back within his own body, and the mere thought was enough to make him giggle a bit madly again. 

He’d called his mother to give the now common excuse of a sleepover with his friend, taken care that he would not be missed the next day, and found a change of clothes for himself and Anthony. 

Though, doing the actual changing was proving more of a challenge. 

His fingers were still clumsy, and now had the tendency to simply  _ slip through _ whatever he was attempting to hold. And perhaps on any other occasion, having the ability to phase through walls would be an interesting one to explore, but at the moment the only thing it did was remind him of the cold, empty nothingness, the fingers of ice sinking into his flesh as his vision grew blurry, the pulsing heat of his wound and the gushing blood pouring from him, too fast, too hot. 

And the more he panicked, the less control he had over his own flesh, his power rippling from him in a confused and terrified wave and shorting out lights and shattering glasses. 

He could not  _ breathe,  _ but then  _ did he even need to any longer? _

His heart was still beating inside his chest, at least. 

That had to mean something, did it not?

Slowly, Jarvis took hold of his hands, stilling their frustrated attempts at slipping buttons from his shirt, and he gently guided them through the rooms until he reached a bathroom. A few gestures had the sower starting, the gentle rush of water hitting the glass partition and running down the drain. The older ghost nodded, smiling, before leaving the bathroom, softly shutting the door behind him. 

Loki stood there, somehow thrown by both the thoughtfulness and the tacit offer, watching the steam started filling the room and obscuring the glass as his mind kept racing. 

But then, perhaps it would do him good to stop thinking for a moment. 

He closed his eyes, feeling his shape discorporate with a thought, sensing his clothes fall to the ground in a puddle and the glass fade through his flesh as he walked into the shower stall. 

The water droplets felt soothing as they passed through him, but somehow it was not enough. 

His body became solid again, the shift almost seamless, as smooth as water, as easy as the barrier of his skin not reflecting the drops instead of letting them through. 

He breathed out, relishing in the sensation of warmth pelting him, water running along his body and warming him to the bones. 

He’d felt so very very cold in that alleyway. 

Deathly coldness, he could now recognize. 

He wondered how all this related to Anthony. 

Was he like him? A corpse brought back to life? Or was he still human instead, just one with the power to raise the dead? Or even something different still. 

But nothing that he could bring to mind truly  _ fit _ with the description of who Anthony  _ was.  _

But that would have to wait. 

There was only so long he would be able to stall his mother’s questions, so long that he would be able to stay away before she started to worry, and he needed to be convincingly  _ normal _ by then. Enough to be able to stand up to scrutiny, and pretend that everything was still normal. 

That would never work.

Loki felt like a different person entirely. Like he’d been turned inside out, like some part of his innermost self had been wrenched apart. 

He didn’t know who he was anymore. He certainly no longer felt like  _ Loki,  _ or rather the Loki who would climb fences and twirl amongst autumn leaves and leave a whoopee cushion on the teacher’s seats. 

He felt so terribly  _ lost.  _

Like nothing about who and what he was made sense any longer. 

Was he even still human? Was he really alive, or was he rather some sort of undead?

The water ran cold around him, and Loki rushed to shut it off, phasing through the knobs a few times before finally managing to turn the tap.

He breathed out, frustrated that a  _ ghost _ was better at handling physical interactions than  _ he _ was, even though he at least still had a body. 

Putting clothes back on was a hassle best left unspoken, and he ended up walking  _ through _ the door instead of actually opening it, but he supposed it could have been worse. 

Control was something he could understand almost instinctively. The way this strange power seemed to manifest made some  _ sense _ to him, even as he fumbled through each task. He knew somehow what he should be doing, how it should be acting. What he was doing wrong. 

It was just a matter of time before he would be able to actually master it. With some practice and experience, this ability would become a truly deadly trick. The ultimate cheat-code against reality. A way to bypass any lock, any vault, anything that would stop any normal human. 

He wondered if he could make himself invisible too. Certainly, that would be an interesting ghost power to have as well. 

His hand curled into a fist. 

He was deflecting. The shock hadn’t quite settled in yet, and he was deflecting because otherwise he would have to confront the fact that he’d just  _ died.  _

His breath caught, throat tight as he felt the shivers course through him the sight of cloying darkness, so very very cold, the nothingness that he was slowly dissolving into, the great echoes of so many voices melded into a single buzzing echo. 

He could still hear it, if he strained his ears enough. He could still feel those phantoms brushing against him, chipping away at his essence, at his individuality. His personhood. 

He remembered the absolute absence of  _ will.  _ He remembered  _ being,  _ being connected, being absolute, beyond the self and the world, simply being aware of everything in the universe, and his own place into it. 

He’d known then, what Anthony was. He’d known with absolute certainty and reverence, he’d felt the complete adoration the universe had for that tiny slip of a boy, the parental affection they held for his best friend. 

He could understand it. 

But the knowledge was gone now, as were those foreign feelings, and the only thing left was a low currents of disgruntlement and blaring worry at the sight of his still slumbering form. 

Loki had never seen Anthony sleep before. He’d never even seen him be  _ tired.  _

He supposed this was a  _ Death thing.  _ Another one, at least. 

But now, Anthony’s form was curled into the coverlet, his chest slowly moving in time with his breaths. Alive then, but nothing had managed to rouse him thus far, not Loki’s mad dash to the safehouse, not having been carried (and almost dropped) up the stairs, not when Loki had dropped him on the bed and removed his shoes and jacket. 

It had been  _ hours.  _

_ He was still not awake.  _

“Let him rest.”

Loki jumped, swirling to find the source of the voice. 

Jarvis. 

Loki deflated, relieved that it was someone they could trust. 

“How long is he going to stay like that?”

And if there was a hint of hysteria in his voice, then he supposed he had been through enough that day to excuse it. 

He wasn’t even surprised anymore that he could hear Jarvis talk. Of course he could talk with ghosts now. 

And he’d turned into a half ghost and his best friend was in a coma. 

Everything was just fine. 

He was freaking out. 

“Until he is recovered enough. It was no small feat, what he just accomplished.”

Anthony looked so small when he was asleep, so vulnerable. Exhaustion still clung to his features, and a worried frown painted his brow. 

Loki wanted to soothe it away. He wanted to bundle the small boy in blankets until no ill or hurt could reach him. 

Loki sighed, resolutely turning away. He could not afford to let his thoughts scatter. He couldn’t just let this fester inside him and blow up at an inopportune time. 

Consciently, he  _ knew _ that what Anthony had done for him was something of a boon, and yet there was still a rankled part of him, a knot of shock and horror that refused to be soothed. Something down to the very fabric of his heart that howled in distress. 

He knew himself and his flaws well enough to know that if he did not take the time to settle it right there and then, he would throw all of those raw, unfiltered feelings at Anthony’s face. He would blame him and tear him apart, and hurlt hurtful words at his innocent face until he saw it crumple from pain and anguish, until guilt and grief turned his eyes dull and dead. And he would leave, disappear from his life to never be found again. 

Such words could never truly be taken back. 

Loki never even wanted them to pass his lips. 

Already he could feel them crowd the back of his mind, poison his thoughts and grind his teeth. 

He needed some fresh air. 

He dashed from the room, not even bothering with the doors as he tried to get away, away from the thoughts roiling through his mind, the sheer uncertainty that made him feel like a stranger to himself, that made Anthony seem like a completely different person than the one who’d been the one closest to him for  _ years. _

He felt as though he was walking on the cracked ice that covered frozen lakes, slippery and too thin to hold him up, knowing that any wrong move would send him plummeting to his icy depth. 

And Anthony was a blowtorch aimed at his feet.

It was not fair, he  _ knew  _ that. 

But he’d never claimed to be, and Anthony had never asked him that either. He was a petty and spiteful teen, standoffish and arrogant. He thought himself better than everyone while being crippled with insecurities, he didn’t care one whit for people’s approval and yet craved it more than anything. 

Or at least, that’s how he  _ used _ to be. 

Death somehow… threw things into perspective. 

He did not know anymore if his thoughts were truly his own or if they’d been somehow colored by the shapeless and all-powerful entity that ruled over the Grim Domain, the Land of Mists. Already, he knew that the very knowledge of Its Name had been granted to him by his passing. 

He hadn’t known it even existed before dying and coming back. 

What else had changed? What else was new? What did it take in return? What was just  _ gone? _

He could not know. The mind wasn’t like a hard drive that one could just compare two different saved versions of. It was a lens through which one saw the world, and while wearing it, how could he know if what he saw was just the slightest bit grayer? Had the lens changed, or had he? And did that make any difference at all in the end? 

What could he do? 

What did it matter anyway, if his mind was just a bit  _ warped,  _ if his moral compass seemed just a bit skewed, if his father’s approval suddenly seemed strangely irrelevant?

What mattered was  _ who _ he was. And he didn’t know that anymore. He couldn’t tell, couldn’t define himself in a way that made sense any longer. 

Everything that used to matter seemed so trivial now. 

He hated it. 

He hated that the thought of who had stolen Jessica Simpson’s homework now seemed ridiculous, hated that seeing Thor rolling on the floor covered in itching powder…

Well, that was still rather funny. 

But was that enough?

He stopped walking. 

It was cold, the breeze biting at his currently corporal body. 

He’d arrived outside, his feet somehow having taken him to the roof. 

The sky was clear now that the rainstorm had ended, twilight coloring the horizon in golds and pinks, the clouds a bright orange on the pale background. 

It was beautiful. 

He could still see beauty. 

What a striking, incongruous thought. 

He didn’t know how to define himself any longer, felt aimless and unmoored since everything that used to matter to him now seemed bland and tasteless, but he still loved Anthony, he still found pleasure in tormenting his brother, and he could still see beauty. 

It was a start. 

He supposed it would have to be enough. 

*

Sitting down on the ledge and leaning back on his elbows, Loki sighed and let himself take the time to just sit and watch. Just a moment to breathe. Just, a minute to  _ be. _

And perhaps that would be enough to let him recognize his own bones once more. 

Perhaps he would open his eyes and feel like  _ Loki _ and not this disjointed mess of reborn flesh. 

He breathed out, deeply. 

Let his lungs carry the air around them, surprisingly clean from car fumes. 

There were herbal fragrances afting from the neighboring park, released by the rain. 

He could hear people walking around still, calling people, angrily yelling, screaming children, distan sirens. 

They were so very faint. 

He could feel the call of the wind, leaves rustling, flapping wings and soft caws, the gentle pitter patter of a gentle drizzle starting again. 

He just let the water pass through him. 

It was peaceful. 

An insistent caw at his side forced his eyes open, and he found himself surrounded by a sea of black birds. 

A murder. 

He’d always loved crows, what goth teen didn’t? But there was something about those birds that put him at ease. The way they were watching him perhaps, their calm and patience, or maybe the way they had come so very close, or their gentleness. 

It seemed welcoming, as though they were here to greet the latest member of their crowd. 

He smiled, both elated and soothed. 

Perhaps he didn’t quite belong with humanity any longer, but he wasn’t really alone either. He had Anthony, he had the crows, and he didn’t think everything from his former life was entirely lost. 

There was hope, time,  _ possibilities _ ahead of him. 

There were still many things he needed to get a handle on. His sense of self and his abilities were only two of those things. 

He needed to figure out how he would reintegrate with his former life, needed to figure out what to do with the magic that was even now sparking at his fingertips, eager to be unleashed and turn the world to its image. 

Needed to make sense of Anthony and how they would go from then on. 

Not all of those needed to be all too difficult to decide. He already knew some of those answers. Most of them in fact. He only needed to make peace with them. 

He needed to be there when his friend woke up. 

*

Magic was easy. It made  _ the world _ easy. 

Sometimes, Loki wasn’t even aware he was using it. Anthony said that it was because he was so powerful, his magic could just simply rewrite reality instead of him needing to figure out how to bend it to his will. 

Apparently, it was a rare gift. Loki found it incredibly convenient. It certainly made sneaking around easier, made hiding his lapses in control almost effortless. 

Not that there were many of those anymore, he'd gotten used to possessing his own body incredibly quickly, though phrasing it that way still made him feel a bit jittery. But he would need some pretty advanced necromantic magic to anchor himself more permanently, to, essentially become alive again. It was possible, and his body was still alive, besides. But their solution had been a placeholder, or so Anthony had said. 

He’d looked adorably embarrassed while talking about it, as though all that he’d done already wasn’t enough to have the greatest mages of the U.S. clamber to kiss his feet, had they ever decided to come clean. 

Sometimes Anthony was truly ridiculous. 

Keeping their mishap a secret wasn’t even a question. Loki’s death and subsequent resurrection would be enough to have the both of them in jail, or worse. 

Keeping Loki’s magic hidden just came with the package. It wasn’t necessarily that he wanted to conceal it so much as the scrutiny that it would bring them. Mages were rare, somehow both revered and feared, and they were very very well known. 

Loki could not afford to have so much spotlight on him, not with the way his magic actually came to be, not with the way his body still felt like an ill-fitting mecha instead of a part of himself. 

Not when it seemed to echo so easily Anthony’s own calls, the way it seemed to surl lovingly over the sigils that called forth the voices of the dead, catching on spirits and manes, singing with glee when he crossed through graveyards. 

And that was even without speaking of the way they would simply take him away to drop him in some all-mages exclusive boarding school and he would lose whatever freedom he had left, and Anthony with it. 

No. 

He laid low. There were barely half a year before they finished high school, and afterward they would have to go to college, and maybe find a way to make their own way in the world. 

They would lay low in the meantime. Become perfectly normal students, almost well-behaved but not too much so as to not have people look too close, and they would  _ plan.  _

They had the world ahead of them, all their life a blank canvas theirs for the taking. 

There was only one thing Loki was certain of. 

He wanted to spend the rest of his life with Anthony at his side. 

*

Romance had a strange way of creeping upon you. 

Shared glances that became lingering touches, soft smiles that turned from camaraderie to intimacy, from friendly to  _ soft.  _ Cuddles that lingered. 

Adrenaline tingling through his veins at the thought of pushing just that bit further, of crossing that last line that they’d been dancing around. 

It lasted for a while, that nebulous, in-between state. Closeness that made them feel so very safe, so delightfully  _ alive.  _

Human. 

This feeling, this tender trepidation, this coy hesitation, it was honey on the tongue and mischief in the eyes. 

They’d been living together for years before this unnamed thing grew between them, and they were comfortable to let it grow further still, to leave it unspoken, to leave those touches unfinished for a while more, teasing each other with the mere  _ possibilities,  _ with hints of what-could-be. 

When they finally kissed, it was a soft thing, the bare flutter of a moth’s wing, a feather-soft touch. 

Hushed, like whispers in the night. 

Powerful enough to light their hearts afire.

Somehow, nothing had ever felt more natural. 

*

There was nothing more  _ rude _ than vaporizing someone’s body. 

When Loki finally finished rebuilding his flesh from the tiny ether beads it had been turned into, there were a few things he was certain of. 

He was pissed, he was vengeful, and he was one week late for dinner. 

And someone had attempted to vaporize his lover. 

And whoever they were was going to die. Painfully. 

He no longer cared who would be made aware of  _ what _ exactly he was, if it ensured that no one would ever try to touch a single hair from his beloved’s head again.

It was a Loki on the warpath that slammed open the bar’s doors, it was a vengeful lich that prowled through the patrons until he found his brother’s band of merry imbeciles, and it was the Carrion Crow Reaper that listened to his drunken brother’s lament, with a vicious smile and predatory eyes. 

“He mur-muer-morade.. He  _ killed my brother! _ I’mma gunna.. I’m gunna kill him back. I am! Who’s wid me?”

Loki watched on, entertained enough to set his rage to the side long enough to make a dramatic entrance. 

This promised to be good. 

Volstagg thumped his meaty fist on the table, roaring his assent. 

“You have my axe, Thor!”

“And my sword!”

“And my mace.”

The warrior three nodded to each other, pledging themselves to the quest and showing their support to their grieving friend.

How touching. 

“And you have your brother.”

The mad scramble as they turned to him and recoiled in fright was terribly satisfying, especially as they turned white as though having turned to a ghost themselves. 

The ridiculous stuttering was annoying, however.

“Yes, I am back. And yes, I want his guts too. Now, where’s my lover? If that moron dared to take advantage of the time I wasn’t there to try something, it’s not just his guts that I’ll take.”

And that was how Loki’s family became aware of his extracurricular activities as the country’s contract necromancer. 

*

Life was… good. 

They’d had their fills of playing with politician’s strings, of shadow games and power plays. It had been fun, for a while, to move their pieces across the board and just watch the chain reactions. Fun to allow the governments to call on them for special, highly confidential cases. Fun to be the only two qualified people in the entire world able to do what they did.

Thrilling and dangerous and exhilarating. 

But after a while, they had started to seek something else. 

There was little that could disturb one’s peace when they lived for aeons. After a couple centuries of traveling and exploring new things, Anthony and Loki had simply decided to… settle. 

They had found a place remote enough that the whispers of the world’s struggles for power barely reached them, on the very edge of civilization yet not entirely cut from it. 

A tiny town, large enough for a sham of anonymity, small enough to still be personable. A small community, kind neighbors, open-minded, welcoming.

A dying land, poisoned by some lingering waste or another, something that their combined powers could easily clean and revive. 

Anthony had been able to let his Aulrune side come in play more often, to let the affinity with nature show. Loki had been able to laze around in graveyards. 

The people had been thankful but discreet, their home isolated and quiet. 

And then they had wanted more. Wanted to build something, to involve themselves, to, maybe, feel a little bit more human, a little less plant and crow. 

The bakery had come as a surprise. 

One of the town’s ghosts had been a chef, a renowned one who despaired over and over to have his knowledge die with him, his prized recipes never passed down onto his children. 

It had seemed an easy feat to simply recreate the dish and present it to the family. A quick way to help the ghost pass on. 

Actually  _ cooking _ it had been more of a challenge than either had expected. 

And it had been  _ fun,  _ a beautiful mess, chasing the accidentally revived turkey around the kitchen, Anthony grumpily shaking flour from his hair, onions toppling everywhere as they cried their hearts out while chopping them, quick kisses shared between laughs and playful jabs and asparagus stalks thrown at each other’s faces. 

They’d loved it. 

They had something to  _ learn,  _ to improve upon, to cooperate with. 

They had a project, and an infinite number of tutors willing to pass on their age-old knowledge. 

In the end they’d opened a bakery. 

There were less risks of raised livestock wreaking havoc in the kitchen, and Loki had a terrible sweet tooth. 

Jarvis helped with inventory, quietly enjoying their retirement as well, Anthony grew an orchard in their backyard, walking barefoot through the grass and feeling vines grow around him. 

They made pies, and buns, and sweets, and they basked into their new beginning. 

There were no more secrets, no more hiding. No more deaths. 

Just, enjoying the very long life ahead of them, with the quiet certainty that, no matter what, they would have each other. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there is the end of the first part of my necromancer AU!   
> Now, It was supposed to end there, but I was conned into writing a smutty sequel for this, so there shall at least be one more work in this series : stay posted for 'Venus Fly Trap' that should be there next Thursday (if I don't forget the days of the week in the meantime)  
> There might be some other works in the series, after all I do realize that there are quite a few loose ends left, but, like. Don't hold your breath for them. I have W.I.Ps to feed and Stories to put through college guys. One thing at a time, yeah?

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to leave a comment and tell me what you thought!  
> I hope you enjoyed :3


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